The Cost of Comfort, the Cost of Change

As business leaders a large proportion of our time these days is spent in assessing the need for change, costs associated with these changes and then deciding do we go or “no-go”. Because the cost of change is fairly easily determined by adding the foreseeable components to come up with a total, here we will discuss the costs of remaining in the current status quo, and as we will find this cost can be difficult to quantify in a spreadsheet and trade off diagrams.

The motivation for change arises when we observe our current results as no longer being sufficient to meet our needs. While this may seem obvious and simple do not believe for a moment that this means it is quick or easy.

Take the time now to consider the change that your organisation is in the process of undertaking or considering. Push aside the thoughts of what activities are being undertaken, what things are needing to be done, and consider what is the underlying motivation, what results were previously accepted that are now needing to be different. What measures were previously acceptable, how do they need to change, what performance criteria are no longer relevant, which new ones are now relevant. What was culturally acceptable, and what is no longer acceptable.

Now consider all of the activities that are being undertaken. These actions have been planned or are being executed and, in some way, all of these actions are believed by someone to take the organisation closer to the desired results. Take the time to place each activity clearly in line with one of the overarching objectives. How well do they fit, do they clash, what aspects are receiving too much, or too little, attention.

The challenge that we face is that while we may agree in principle with a new course of action, we may advocate a change of direction, we may in fact be the proponents of the necessary change, none of this guarantees us success. The business world is littered with stories of identified, necessary and acknowledged need for change ending in results that don’t live up to the expectations, or worse.

Why? Not for lack of planning, not for lack of resources, not for lack of passion, and not for lack of effort, so why. John Wooden was quoted as saying “Never mistake activity for achievement”. In fact all to often, it can been seen that the directive, “we must change” is translated to “quick, do something”, or worse still “quick, work harder.”

The issue is one of haste, (not speed). We know that the world of business can be fast paced and as technology improves so to the rate at which we can do business, the human mind is capable of processing more information at a faster rate than any computer ever developed but none of this is relevant if we are, doing the wrong business or, processing the wrong information. (Stop for a moment and take a look at your email….)

When we first become aware of the need to change, our conscious mind, a great problem solving machine, kicks into high gear to work out an action plan. The issue with this is that the action plan is built by the old mindset, created in the old paradigm. This limits our thinking to a thought world that has effectively just caught a glimpse of the brave new world. We then become so caught up in the planning and the actions and the doing that we fail to see that we have missed a crucial sequential step in the process of change. We need to create the change within us before we can change our environment.

When next you look at less than excellent results in frustration, consider for a moment that this is not only a frustration to you in a report or on a chart, your team are living that frustration every day, they work through that need for change every day, the cost of being comfortable in our thinking is frustration, stress and inefficiency in many areas of your business and in the lives of your team.

What change can you see on the horizon? What do you need to be willing to let go of to ensure that the change can be implemented? Are you willing to sacrifice the current comfort of the known for the benefits of a future untested?

Changing your thinking will have far reaching effects throughout your organisation.

To further consider the depth of change necesary to achieve lasting and fruitful change consider some of the points raised in http://www.articlesbase.com/leadership-articles/change-plan-execute-this-is-your-paradigm-speaking-1431520.html .